Thanksgiving weekend hasn’t always been the best bellwether for how Americans will spend during the holiday season. And this time, maybe retailers are hoping it’s not.

Estimated spending was down over the long Thanksgiving weekend from a year ago, according to a survey released Sunday by the industry’s largest trade group.

The National Retail Federation estimated spending of $57.4 billion for the four-day period that ended Sunday, down 2.9 percent from a year ago. The NRF said the number of people who went shopping at least once was 141 million, up from 139 million last year.

A decline in average spending by shoppers to an estimated $407 — from $424 last year — was partly due to more discounts from retailers and more conservative budgeting by U.S. households, the industry group said. Its numbers include online spending.

The last time average spending over Thanksgiving weekend declined was in 2009, during the recession.

The federation is still sticking to its forecast for sales to rise 3.9 percent during the two-month season. Sometimes Black Friday weekends have generated strong sales gains, but then shoppers tapered spending the rest of the days leading up to Christmas.

Many shoppers remain budget-conscious and value-focused and may not be willing or able to spend freely this season after already taking on big ticket items like home repairs and upgrades, said NRF chief executive Matthew Shay.

Absent big discounts, consumers aren’t spending at levels that retailers need to have sales growth, so the season is expected to remain promotional, he said.

“Consumers can afford big-ticket items, or discretionary spending, but they can’t seem to do both at the same time in this economy,” Shay said. He brought up the need for more robust job growth and higher-paying jobs. (The retail and restaurant industries have increasingly come under fire by unions and other groups, especially during Black Friday weekend, for not supporting a higher minimum wage.)

Extended savings

Shoppers have been trained, especially since the recession, to wait for bigger discounts.

This year, Black Friday sales weren’t just moved into Thanksgiving Day. Amazon.com started deep discounts the Sunday before Thanksgiving. The same is happening with Cyber Monday, a day that took on a marketing mantra in the mid-2000s when people continued shopping online after returning to work from the holiday weekend.

On Sunday, Macy’s and J.C. Penney already were offering their Cyber Monday discounts. Kohl’s declared Nov. 30 through Dec. 7 Cyber Week and included free standard shipping through Wednesday. Sears also started its Cyber Monday deals on Sunday and said prices would be good through 7 a.m. on Wednesday. Target.com has a countdown clock for its Cyber Monday deals lasting until Saturday. Most stores have lowered the dollar amount for purchases to qualify for free shipping.

But discounts over the weekend weren’t enough to get some shoppers to splurge on themselves.

Fewer people said they were buying for themselves this year, according to the NRF survey. That may account for some of the decline as shoppers use funds to instead buy gifts, said Pam Goodfellow analyst at Prosper Insights & Analytics, the firm that conducted the survey.

ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin said Sunday that his firm forecasts holiday sales to increase 2.4 percent from last year. That’s the weakest increase since the recession for ShopperTrak’s measure of sales, which is limited to general merchandise and excludes gasoline and groceries.

ShopperTrak’s data is based on store traffic. It estimated people spent 13.2 percent less on Black Friday than a year ago. However, when Friday’s results were combined with business on Thanksgiving Day, sales increased 2.3 percent from last year. The research firm will release full weekend results on Tuesday.

“The next litmus test is Saturday and Sunday, if those days are depressed and Thursday leached sales out of Friday, the weekend will be a tough one to call successful for retailers on the margin side,” Martin said.

Tradeoffs

Retailers may have gotten sales at the expense of profit, Martin said. “Opening on Thanksgiving Day included higher costs for holiday pay, catered dinners, electricity, employee incentive discounts…”

For the first time this year, more major chains such as J.C. Penney, Kohl’s, Macy’s and Target were open on Thanksgiving Day. Also, Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and Best Buy opened earlier than last year on Thursday.

Wal-Mart said it had 10 million transactions from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., and Target.com had twice as many orders as last year on Thanksgiving.

GameStop spokesman Joey Mooring said Sunday that the video-game retailer’s online sales tripled on Black Friday, representing the best single-day sales online for the Grapevine-based chain. It’s benefiting from the new Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles.

Nearly 25 percent of GameStop’s Black Friday revenue came from customers buying online in the store and having products shipped to their homes. Mobile site visits increased 74 percent from a year ago and page views almost doubled over last year.

When respondents were asked in the NRF survey where they planned to shop during the long weekend, department stores ranked first with 54.2 percent, followed by online (42.1 percent) and discount stores (38.9 percent).

Electronics stores were next with 32.2 percent and clothing and accessories stores followed with 28.7 percent.

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